These are the six things your procurement team should be focused on right now.
The Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025.
For many public sector procurement teams, the preparation work is done. Policies have been updated. Teams have been briefed. But being ready on paper and being ready in practice aren’t the same thing. The first few months of any major legislative change are where the gaps between intention and implementation become visible.
Some organisations ran their first procurement under the new Act and discovered that their updated templates didn’t quite work in practice. Others found that staff outside the procurement team, the budget holders, commissioners, and operational managers who specify requirements, weren’t as prepared as they needed to be. Some are still working through which of their existing contracts, frameworks, and DPS solutions are affected by the transitional provisions and which aren’t. And most are realising that the Act’s new transparency, evaluation, and contract management requirements need more sustained attention than a one-off training session can provide.
This checklist doesn’t try to cover everything. It focuses on the six priorities that matter most in the first months after go-live. These are the areas where getting it right early prevents problems from compounding, and where getting it wrong creates risks that are harder to fix the longer they’re left. Whether you’re in an NHS trust managing the dual complexity of the Procurement Act and the Provider Selection Regime, a multi-academy trust aligning the Act with Academy Trust Handbook requirements, a local authority updating standing orders and contract procedure rules, or a blue light service embedding new transparency obligations, these six priorities apply.
What’s in the checklist
Priority 1: Confirm your policies and procedures are updated and approved. Not just drafted, but formally approved through your governance process, communicated to everyone who needs to follow them, and accessible in a format people can actually find and use. If your updated policies are sitting in a shared drive waiting for sign-off, they’re not protecting you.
Priority 2: Test your updated processes before relying on them. Updated templates, evaluation methodologies, and notice procedures need testing in a controlled environment before they’re used in a live procurement. Running your first procurement under the new Act isn’t the time to discover that your revised evaluation template doesn’t capture what the legislation requires.
Priority 3: Set up your KPI and contract management framework. For contracts above £5 million, the Act requires published KPIs and annual performance assessments. If you’re awarding contracts at this level, the KPI framework needs to be in place at the point of award, not retrofitted months later when the first assessment is due.
Priority 4: Communicate the changes to your wider organisation. Procurement professionals aren’t the only people affected. Budget holders, commissioners, operational managers, and anyone involved in specifying requirements or managing supplier relationships needs to understand what’s changed and how it affects their role.
Priority 5: Engage your supply chain. Your suppliers need to understand how the new Act affects them: changes to notice requirements, evaluation criteria, the shift to most advantageous tender, and the contract management obligations that will apply to their contracts. Proactive communication prevents confusion and strengthens the relationship.
Priority 6: Know the key dates. Transitional provisions, notice deadlines, the DPS-to-Dynamic Markets transition timeline, and the first Payment Compliance Notice reporting period all have specific dates that your team needs in the calendar. Missing them creates compliance exposure that’s entirely preventable.
Who this checklist is for
This checklist is for heads of procurement, procurement managers, and compliance leads in any UK public sector organisation who want a focused, prioritised view of what to address first now the PA 2023 is in effect. It’s deliberately concise. It covers six priorities rather than attempting a comprehensive compliance review, because in the first months after go-live, knowing where to focus is more valuable than a long list of everything that’s changed.
It’s relevant for organisations that completed thorough preparation before go-live and want to confirm they haven’t missed anything critical, as well as for organisations that are still catching up and need a clear sense of what matters most right now. Whether you’re in healthcare, education, local government, blue light, defence, or central government, the six priorities are the same.
Summary
The first months of any new legislation set the patterns that stick. Getting these six priorities right now prevents the kind of compliance gaps that become governance problems later. Download the checklist, work through it with your team, and if you identify areas that need more support than you can deliver internally, Inprova’s procurement transformation and risk and compliance services are designed for exactly this. 100% of Inprova’s eligible staff completed four-day Procurement Act training so our team is ready to support yours.
Frequently asked questions
Inprova has published several resources covering the Procurement Act 2023 at different stages. Our preparation checklist, published before the Act came into force, focused on getting ready: updating policies, training staff, and planning the transition. Our comprehensive compliance checklist provides a detailed, systematic review of your entire procurement function against the Act’s requirements. This go-live checklist sits between the two. It’s focused specifically on the six priorities that matter most in the first months after the legislation took effect. It’s not trying to be comprehensive. It’s designed to help procurement teams identify the things that need attention right now, before small gaps become significant compliance risks. If you’ve already worked through the preparation checklist and want to confirm you’re on track, this gives you a focused check. If you haven’t yet started a systematic compliance review, this tells you where to begin. And if you want the full, detailed assessment, our comprehensive compliance checklist provides that depth.
Updating a procurement policy or an evaluation template is one thing. Knowing that it works in practice is another. Many organisations updated their documents before the Act came into force but haven’t yet tested them in a live procurement situation. Testing means running through the process, ideally with a real or realistic scenario, before you rely on it. Does your revised evaluation methodology produce a clear, defensible award decision? Does your transparency notice process capture all the information the Act requires at every stage? Do your contract management templates support the KPI setting and performance assessment obligations for higher-value agreements? Testing surfaces problems while there’s still time to fix them. Once you’re midway through a live procurement and discover your template doesn’t work, your options are limited and the risk of non-compliance is real. The checklist covers what to test, how to test it, and what to look for.
Your suppliers are operating under the same legislation, and many of them are navigating the changes with less preparation and support than your procurement team has had. Proactive communication prevents confusion and demonstrates that you’re an informed, well-governed buyer that suppliers can trust. Key messages for your supply chain include how the shift to most advantageous tender affects how their bids will be evaluated, going forward quality, social value, and broader public benefit carry more weight alongside price. The new transparency requirements mean more information about procurement processes and contract awards will be published, and suppliers should understand what will be visible. Contract management obligations for higher-value agreements mean KPIs will be set, published, and assessed annually, and suppliers need to understand what they’ll be held accountable for. And the exclusion and debarment provisions mean suppliers need to be aware of the mandatory and discretionary grounds that could affect their eligibility. Communicating these changes proactively also gives you the opportunity to set expectations about how you’ll be working with your supply chain going forward, which strengthens the relationship and reduces the risk of disputes or misunderstandings during live procurements.
Several critical dates flow from the Procurement Act 2023 and its transitional provisions. The Act came into force on 24 February 2025, meaning all new above-threshold procurements commenced from that date must comply with the new legislation. Procurements already in progress before that date can continue under the previous regulations through transitional provisions. Dynamic Purchasing Systems established under the previous legislation can continue operating until they expire or until 23 February 2029, whichever comes first. After that date, any procurement route of this type must be established as a Dynamic Market. The first Payment Compliance Notice reporting period runs from 24 February 2025 to 31 March 2026, with notices due by 30 April 2026. For higher-value contracts awarded under the Act, the first annual performance assessments will be due twelve months after contract commencement. Your procurement team should have all of these dates mapped against your current contract portfolio and procurement pipeline so you can plan which procurements need to follow the new rules, which existing arrangements are approaching their transition points, and when your first reporting obligations fall due.
The six priorities apply universally, but the weight and complexity differ by sector. NHS trusts face the additional complexity of operating under both the Procurement Act for non-clinical procurement and the Provider Selection Regime for clinical services. Correctly classifying every procurement is a priority in itself for healthcare organisations. Multi-academy trusts must align the Act with the Academy Trust Handbook and DfE buying guidance, which means policy updates need to address multiple overlapping requirements. Local authorities may need to update standing orders and contract procedure rules through formal governance processes that take time, so starting early on priority one is critical. Blue light services may encounter some of the Act’s transparency requirements for the first time, making priority four (communicating changes to the wider organisation) particularly important. Central government departments face the most demanding transparency and social value requirements, with the National Procurement Policy Statement adding further expectations. The checklist is designed to be used by any public sector organisation, but understanding how your sector’s specific governance framework interacts with the Act helps you prioritise the areas where the risk of non-compliance is greatest.
